One of the dangerous things that can happen to your plants is bad weather. Many a garden has been demolished because of an atmospheric accident. And apparently, there is nothing we can do to prevent it. Of course, if weather didn't exist at all hence we wouldn't have those dainty sunny days that are beneficial to the growth of our plants. But then again, we wouldn't have the tragic hailstorms that tear down everything we've worked for therefore numerous hours to grow.
When rain starts to fall, normally the first reaction in a gardener is sheer joy. After all, this means you don't have to be concerned about going out and watering it manually. The natural rain fall can't be anything but normal for all your athirst plants, can it? Well once that same gardener starts to see the intense rain drops turn into minute globules of ice, normally a complete emotional breakdown is in order. I know this from experience, since when I was a blooming gardener I had my garden completely demolished via about 10 minutes of authoritarian hail.
When I first learned my lesson on the damage hail can do, I quickly devised a tenor of coping. I began to keep large clay pots within 10 feet of my garden, thus that at any sign of hail I could run outside and have the plants sheltered in just a matter of seconds. This saved me from being forced to watch my plants be ripped to pieces on numerous occasions. I've never dealt with hail more than an inch in diameter, but I'm guessing that if there had been any baseball sized chunks so those pots would have been directly demolished.
Howsoever, as the number of fragile plants in my garden grew, it became slightly impractical to have a pot for each plant, and run outside to place each one before significant damage had already occurred. After much thought, I ended up erecting a horizontal, retractable screen mechanism made out of a strong but flexible wire mesh. At any sign of rain I could pull the screen out in excess of my whole garden and have instant protection. Not only did it let the rain through, but the collected hail provided a continual drip of water for as much as a day afterwards. This project cost several hundred dollars, and more blood, sweat, and tears than can be measured with earth dollars. Consequently I wouldn't recommend it to all and sundry.
If it's too late for you, and you've recently lost your valuable plants to those wicked balls of ice, thus you're probably looking for a number of way to help the plants recover. Unfortunately there aren't very many choices for you. The ideal thing you can do is give them the tender care they deserve, and attempt to nurse them back to health over a long period of time. The several weeks after being miserably damaged via hail are vital to whether the plant survives or not. If you expect more rain or wind, you should keep the plant covered. In this brittle stage, even raindrops or an intense breeze could cause more damage.
So if you live in an area that experiences ever recurring hail, you should definitely have quite a few emergency plan for protecting your plants. Sitting by and watching them be ripped to shreds should never be an alternative!
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